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Pronominalization and discourse coherence, discourse structure and pronoun interpretation

P C Gordon1, K A Scearce

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 27599-3270, USA.

Memory & Cognition
|May 1, 1995
PubMed
Summary

Readers use local discourse structure to interpret pronouns initially. World knowledge then confirms or changes this default interpretation, showing structure’s key role in language comprehension.

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Computational Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Pronoun interpretation is crucial for discourse coherence.
  • Centering theory models how discourse structure influences interpretation.
  • The interplay between discourse structure and world knowledge in pronoun resolution is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the temporal dynamics of pronoun interpretation.
  • To determine the relative contributions of local discourse structure and world knowledge.
  • To test the influence of discourse structure on pronoun resolution when semantic cues precede the pronoun.

Main Methods:

  • Two self-paced reading-time experiments were conducted.
  • Participants read sentences designed to manipulate discourse structure and semantic information.

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  • Reading times were analyzed to infer cognitive processing during pronoun interpretation.

    • Main Results:

    • Readers initially rely on local discourse structure for default pronoun interpretation.
    • World knowledge influences pronoun interpretation, confirming or overriding the initial structural bias.
    • Discourse structure impacts pronoun interpretation even when semantic information appears earlier in the text.

    Conclusions:

    • Local discourse structure plays a significant and early role in guiding pronoun interpretation.
    • Language comprehension is dynamically influenced by both structural and knowledge-based factors.
    • These findings support models where discourse structure actively constrains interpretation processes.